One would think, assuming you know me at all and, therefore, are aware that I am the consummate Halloween Junkie with fangs of candy corn and veins pulsing with pumpkin goo, that I would now regale you with tales of my most recent Samhain insanity, but you would be wrong.
Nope. It was, for the most part, a quiet and uneventful evening in the G. W. household.
I had originally intended to do a Halloween post wherein I acted as a sort of half-assed online DJ, inundating your poor computer screen with a slew of seasonally-appropriate YouTube links-- "Dinner With Drac" by John Zacherle, the obligatory "Monster Mash" (but a live version with both Bobby "Boris" Pickett and John Zacherle), "Werewolves of London" (also live, with a somewhat manic Warren Zevon), and so forth and so on, including what has to be the scariest music video of all time, Nina Hagen covering David Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust."
Didn't happen.
After a...trying...day at work I came home, cooked up some Ramen noodles (which, I guess, is pretty scary all by itself), took an extended nap, and, really, didn't do much of anything beyond channel-surfing, hoping for an Addams Family marathon or repeats of all the Roseanne Halloween specials.
No such luck.
However, at 10:00 p. m. Turner Classic Movies unexpectedly (to me) aired one of the classic horror films of all time, The Body Snatcher with Boris Karloff.
Ah, bliss! Moody, atmospheric, high contrast black & white goodness! No quirky-assed, be-gimmicked serial killers, no gallons of squirting blood 'n' gore, no on-screen decapitations, just the unnervingly quiet menace of Boris Karloff, who can utter even the most prosaic of lines ("Why, hello, Toddy!") and fill it with horrific nuance. When Bela Lugosi as "Joseph" attempts to blackmail Karloff's character, cabman John Gray, midway through the film...
Joseph: I know you kill people to sell bodies.
John Gray: You say you came here of your own account? No one sent you, no one knows you're here?
Joseph: Give me money or I tell the police that you murder the subjects.
John Gray: Well, Joseph, you shall have money, why should you not? I don't suppose the great Dr MacFarlane is over lavish with his pay?
Joseph: No.
...you know things aren't going to turn out well for poor Bela!*
And that was Halloween, 2007, safe and sane, quiet and uneventful, except for one little thing--
When I left for work the next morning I discovered that my front door had been covered with bloody (adult-sized) hand prints during the night.
And I still don't know to whom they belong.
Cue The Twilight Zone theme.
* In more ways than one. This was the last film Boris and Bela made together and Bela's role is a small one--his continuing drug use had taken its toll on both his looks and career.
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